``The thing about Ellis is he's a real conscientious kid,'' Belichick said before the Patriots' second exhibition last week. ``When you tell him something, he really goes out there and tries to do it right and get it straight the next time.''

That's good, because after the 37-27 loss to the Saints, Hobbs, 22, has a lot to get straight. The third-round pick returned four kickoffs, one for 53 yards, another for 31. After the game, a bunch of people wanted to congratulate him on his nifty moves.

But late in the third quarter, with the Patriots leading 27-16 and seemingly in control, Hobbs made a move that wasn't nifty at all. He came up on his receiver at a bad angle, gambling he could intercept an Aaron Brooks pass intended for Devery Henderson. But all Hobbs got was air as Henderson blew by him to complete a 34-yard touchdown.

``I got an earful from the coaches,'' Hobbs admitted. ``I took a bad angle. My mentality was try to make a big play. In college, that would have been an interception. But there's less time to make the play in the pros. I'm learning you have to pick and choose your gambles. ... No, I take that back. I wouldn't have done anything different. To say I wouldn't try to do it again, that's not in a cornerback's nature. I wasn't being selfish or stupid. I was just trying to make a big play for my team. Next time, I'll know better.''

Besides receiving Iowa State's Academic Athlete of the Year award, Hobbs won the football team's scholar-athlete award three times and was twice on The Big 12 All-Academic first team. But such accolades don't mean anything to Belichick if the recipient, a defensive back who constitutes the last line of defense, loses a gamble that results in an opponent's touchdown.

The Patriots have won back-to-back Super Bowls in large part because their defense gives up so few big plays.

Not only did Belichick make his reputation as a defensive mastermind, he made it as the architect of defenses that almost always forced an offense to sustain long drives if they were to score. If you allow an offense to score in one big gulp, Belichick believes, not only do you risk deflating your own team, you rob your defense of multiple opportunities to force a turnover.

Belichick rarely expounds on any play, good or bad, but when a reporter this week asked him about Hobbs' gamble, clearly, he had touched a nerve.

``You coach it that if you can get two hands on the ball, you intercept the pass,'' Belichick said. ``If you can't get two hands on the ball, you try to knock the ball down with one hand and secure the tackle with the other. ... You can't go out there and miss an interception and give up a touchdown. You can't play like that. It's not worth it. How many are you going to intercept and run back for a touchdown? You have a good year if there's one. ... We're already on the minus side of the ledger on that one.

``You just can't make plays like that in the secondary. There's nobody behind you.''

Despite the gaffe, Hobbs, who grew up near Dallas in DeSoto, Texas, has good coverage instincts and is a good special teams player, vital for almost any rookie on a Belichick-coached team. At 5 feet 9, 188 pounds, Hobbs is small for the position, but no one views Hobbs as a finesse player.

``At my size,'' he said, ``you'd better be physical.''

Hazing is still a ritual at many levels of football, but Hobbs says no one has ever gotten physical with him, certainly not on the Patriots. Rookies carrying veterans' shoulder pads and veterans administering horrible haircuts to the rookies last week is about as bad as it gets around here.

``If you cooperate, they leave you alone,'' said Hobbs, who said the veterans allowed him to shave his head 36 hours after they had butchered his haircut.

Did Hobbs go out in public looking like that?

``Sure did,'' he said. ``Nobody knows me around here anyway. I know who I am. Ain't no haircut going to change who I am. Now, if my mother tells me I look like a mess, that's a different story. I've got to listen to her.''

When Hobbs was starting high school, his parents helped him buy his first car, a Ford Probe with a nice red paint job. Hobbs was proud of that car, proud that his parents had entrusted him to take care of that car. But some kids egged it as part of a hazing ritual, and Hobbs said when the eggs dried, it ruined the paint job. He never found out who did it, but even if he had, he said he wouldn't have sought retribution.

``I remember how [bad] I felt,'' said Hobbs, whose 63-year-old father, Ellis Hobbs II, is a retired military man. ``I'd never want to make someone else feel that way. I never want to degrade someone.''